Loading...Jesus said I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. A commandment, that’s a tough word. It’s a mandate. It gives no wiggle room. Now I’ll do most anything that I can for someone if they ask nicely. But I really hate being told want to do. I won’t make it very long in the military. When an officer got in my face and yelled a command, I’d want to say “Say Please” That probably wouldn’t go over very well.
Jesus didn’t say please, he didn’t give a suggestion or a helpful hint, it was a command.
Let’s step back and set the stage for this scene. Jesus and his disciples had just come off the road after walking for some time. They were sweaty and dirty. They probably had been arguing. Remember that James and John had tried to get a favored place for themselves asking Jesus if they could sit next to him in paradise. The others had to have over heard this conversation and it could not have gone over well with them. So here they are now sitting in this room, tired, hot, dusty, and angry, and Jesus tells them that one of them will betray him. Now we add confusion and suspicion to the mood. Judas leaves and Jesus gets a bowl of water, takes this robe off and ties a towel around his waist and begins washing their feet. Now we can add guilt to all the feelings going on in the room. It was probably quite. Each in their own place thinking and wondering, feeling.
Jesus is sitting there watching this quite scene and knowing that he is about to leave and wonders what else can he say to his friends. What words to leave with them. It reminds me of parents who, when their child is leaving home for the first time, reminds them of all the things they need to remember: brush your teeth, wear clean underwear, drive safely, spend your money wisely, make good decisions. Moses did that when the Israelites were about to enter into the promised land. Remember Moses didn’t get to go with them so he sat them down and had a long talk with them. He reminded them of God’s love for them and how God had been with them every step of the way during the last 40 years and had provided for them and that God required their love in return. Now Jesus is saying this last words before he leaves.
And he says, “I give you a commandment that you love one another. It’s a good thing that Jesus did not command his disciples to like one another. but what he did do was to require them to love each other.
And it is a commandment to us also whether were like being told what to do or not. Jesus commands us to love one another. He didn’t say it was going to be easy. Some people are harder to love than others. Loving Jesus is the easy part. Loving each other now that’s hard. That’s because Jesus doesn’t cut us off on the Waterson expressway or beat us into the last parking space. Jesus doesn’t lose the remote or snore. He doesn’t borrow money and never pay it back. He is not a loser or a drunk, or an addict. He is not on the other side of the political aisle. Jesus doesn’t annoy us; he doesn’t repulse us.
No matter how hard we try to make Jesus a living presence in our lives, he still is spirit to us. We know Jesus through songs, and scripture and read about his love and the beauty of his kingdom. So what’s not to love? He doesn’t litter our lives with habits we dislike or sights and smells we despise or words of hate. In contrast to the image of a loving, lovable Jesus, we have people around us everyday that we struggle to tolerate, much less love.
Jesus didn’t stop with the words to love one another he added “Just as I have loved you”
The Apostle Paul described how Jesus modeled for us the kind of love he wanted us to have for one another. Paul said,”Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God as something to be grasped (or held onto), but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross
It is humbling to know that Jesus loved us so much he was willing suffer the pain of dying on the cross for us. It is humbling to know that he also loved those that we struggle to love. He gave his life for them also.
We may think that the opposite of love is hate. But if we really think about it to love means to give. Giving of ourselves, our time, our ears to listen to one another, our shoulder for someone’s tears. The opposite of giving is taking, greed and selfishness is the opposite of love. When we take more than we need, when others go without, when we selfishly take care of our desires and turn a blind eye to the needs of those around us. Jesus didn’t model selfishness and greed, he modeled giving and caring for others.
Imagine what it would be like if Jesus had only left yesterday and that we knew when he was coming back. Until he returns it is our job to keep Jesus’ love in the world. To live it and to share it. How would you live and love differently you knew he would be back tomorrow.
I read a story about a man who had a huge boulder in his front yard. He grew tired of this big, unattractive stone in the center of his lawn, so he decided to turn it into an object of art. He went to work on it with hammer and chisel, and chipped away at the huge boulder until the ugly stone became a beautiful running deer. When he finished, it was gorgeous, breath-taking.
A neighbor asked, “How did you ever carve such a marvelous likeness of a deer?”
The man answered, “I just chipped away everything that didn’t look like a deer!”
You know that our former Presiding Bishop. Bishop Curry said, that if isn’t about love then it isn’t about God. If it doesn’t look like love than it doesn’t look like God.
So what if we ask God to help us chip away everything in your lives right now that doesn’t look like love.
Let’s ask God to help us chip away everything in our lives that doesn’t look like compassion, mercy or empathy.
If we have hatred or prejudice or vengeance or envy in our hearts, for God’s sake, let’s chip it away!
Let God chip everything out of our lives that doesn’t look like love.
I believe we take Jesus’ command to love one another too lightly. To love as Jesus loves us seems way out of our reach. To let love rule everything we say and do, seems almost impossible. We fail over and over again. But we can’t give up trying. We have been commanded to love. To do this, we need Jesus’ love. We need his unconditional, never-failing love to forgive us for our lack of love. Thank God that Jesus doesn’t love us like we love others.
My prayer for us today, is that we love as Jesus has loved us.
